The present invention relates generally to storage systems and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for data processing among remote file storage systems.
Data transfers among remote sites are commonly used for various purposes. For example, data sharing among remote offices is used to share documents among users in different places. Data backup and replication to remote site are useful and commonly used methods for DR (Disaster Recovery) and BS (Business Continuity) to avoid damage caused by disasters such as earthquake or power blackout. However, data transfer among remote sites gives rise to problems for data processing. Data transfer for a long distance results in high latency and low bandwidth. When a computer in a local site executes a data processing program requiring whole data (such as text search or virus scan) stored in a remote site and the local site has no cache data, the computer must recall whole data from the remote site and this results in significant processing time.